Stephen R. Kellert is a professor emeritus of social ecology and a senior research scholar at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and is decorated with more honors and awards than would ever be rational. His work concerns the relation between humans and natural processes and features, more specifically how this relationship applies to design and development. His book, Building for Life, examines our society’s need for sustainable design in order to achieve a higher quality of life. He champions the ecological and cultural movement in biophilic design, design that appeals to the innate human affinity for natural processes and features.
By eliciting positive, valued experiences of nature within our built environment, we can repair the relationship between nature and ourselves, so that we might easier recognize our dependence on nature, and ultimately become more responsible in our treatment of it. Sustainability aside, biophilia is very much cultural, and is envisions a society of individuals more conscious of their surroundings, first through their natural environment, but also indirectly through their social environment . The Promenade Plantée, or the Bastille Viaduct, in Paris is cited as an effective example as it has successfully “[restoring] contact with nature in an urban context”. He asserts that the project has revitalized the area socially and economically, while returning the city dweller to a more common interaction with nature. At the same time, Kellert is fast to critique the Bastille Viaduct’s failure to address “low environmental impact or ecological landscape design” and entertains the idea that the project may not be a great example. He similarly discusses the work of Frank Lloyd Wright whose prairie houses, most notably with Fallingwater, have demonstrated biophilic principles in establishing a sentimental harmony of human within nature. Yet, due to the cost, heavy use of materials, and limited energy efficiency, Kellert cannot quite call Frank Lloyd Wright the ideal ‘Biophile.’
Three degrees of our human affinity to nature can be considered when applying biophilia to a design: direct, indirect and symbolic. The direct is the hardest, as the built environment can only frame, and never be a direct experience with nature. Full nature does not anticipate the implantation of built works. A greenhouse or courtyard can frame a garden, a direct experience of nature, but the structure around it could simply not be. The indirect experience involves the existence of nature that is dependent on the maintenance and support of human efforts. A fern in a vase, or the fishtank at your dentists’ office are examples of natural environments confined and constrained where their vitality is dependent on third support. Lastly, the symbolic experience of nature, which is the most obvious within art, and has been pursued for as long as architecture has been practiced. Arabic floral patterns, Gothic sculptural details and rose windows, to the efforts of Frank Lloyd Wright to integrate structure into nature, all relate directly to understanding nature through abstraction, through symbol.
Kellert makes one significant assumption that forms the basis of his whole argument, that humanity has a natural tendency to revere what is resemblant of nature. Seemingly sensible in theory, the assumption appears to be false, as aesthetic tastes do exist that appreciate the quality of orthogonality and the hand-prints of man.